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Prestige Awards Winner: Specialty Function
The annual JPCL Prestige Awards program recognizes influential individuals, impactful products on the market and noteworthy projects completed during the past year in the protective and marine coatings industry.
Differing from past editions, the 2022 Top Project Awards highlight specific products involved in notable coating projects across an array of industry sectors, including bridge and highway, water and wastewater, marine, energy production and more.
Additionally, each Top Project category includes Project MVP awards, which recognize the team leaders who helped carry these projects through to successful completion.
“We wanted to enhance this year’s Prestige Awards by assessing the performance of top products and the influence of outstanding individuals on real-world, high-stakes painting projects,” said Charlie Lange, Editor-in-Chief, JPCL.
“By recognizing the team leaders and the materials and equipment used to complete these projects, we’re offering a 360-degree view of the jobs from start to finish, and truly focusing on the critical components that led to the project’s completion.”
Over the coming weeks, PaintSquare Daily News will be highlighting the winners of this year’s projects. A full list of winners can be found in the January edition of the Journal of Protective Coatings & Linings.
Nominations for the 2023 Prestige Awards are anticipated to open July 1 online. The awards committee is currently considering changes to the 2023 awards program, including updated categories, an enhanced online nominations form and a new judging panel.
More information will be released in the coming months. Watch for additional details and deadline reminders in upcoming issues of JPCL and PaintSquare Daily News.
The Specialty Function Coatings award highlights a coating project that involves applications that serve functions outside of just corrosion protection. Examples might include fire protection, graffiti remediation, antifouling and more. The project can involve steel, concrete or a combination of substrates.
Specialty Function Coatings Winner
A new method of designing and building high-rise apartment and office buildings is revolutionizing the construction industry, and the simple act of moving steel coating application from the construction site to an offsite facility is a critical factor enabling this revolution – while also allowing developers to erect buildings where they were previously impractical.
This method, involving extensive prefabrication, is faster, more efficient and more sustainable than the conventional approach. Much of the work is done offsite, in factories, with the construction of prefabricated wall and floor panels that already contain heating, electrical and plumbing infrastructure, along with architectural finishes. The panels are shipped to the construction site, assembled like Legos and then fastened together, as well as to the building’s structural steel exoskeleton. With these efficiencies, a project that would normally take two years to complete can take up to half that time. Sustainability also reigns, as far less material is wasted, and fewer pollution-spewing construction vehicles travel back and forth from the construction site.
Sustainable Living Innovations (SLI), based in Seattle, is thoroughly committed to prefabricated construction, having just used the method in its flagship project, 303 Battery, a 15-story, 112-unit apartment complex in Seattle. At its factory in Tacoma, Washington, the company built nearly 1,000 utility-packed wall and floor panels for the project, the first high-rise apartment building anywhere in the world that’s expected to meet net-zero energy standards established by the International Living Future Institute. That means the building will produce 105% of the energy it consumes – by using highly sustainable systems like solar panels (including some offsite solar) and heat recovery devices, as well as recycling “greywater” from showers and washing machines, to offset energy and utility usage.
While SLI had already optimized its approach to constructing prefabricated panels, the company needed to determine the best way to manage the production and erection of the structural steel that would support the panels. Integral to the design aesthetic of 303 Battery, the building would feature architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS) that wouldn’t need to be covered (Figure 3), eliminating the use of drywall and cladding and limiting other materials throughout the entire building. But all that steel needed to be coated – some with just an anti-corrosive primer and some with that primer plus fireproofing coatings and/or an aesthetic topcoat, depending on where the steel would be used in the structure. The fireproofing coatings help to prevent structural collapse in the event of a fire and are not required on certain steel pieces. Coating that steel at the 303 Battery construction site would not be feasible due to the site’s small footprint and the extra costs associated with erecting a makeshift coatings shop and maintaining the climate inside.
To overcome these site limitations – not to mention carry forward SLI’s goal of moving nearly all construction activities offsite – the developer knew shop coating applications would be required. Here, SLI discovered a fireproofing coating that matched its construction method when it came to speed, economy and environmental friendliness. The intumescent product, Firetex FX9502 from Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine, required lower installed thicknesses compared to other such coatings, which meant faster application and curing times and significantly lower costs. These thinner coating films helped to showcase the attractiveness of the steel to allow for an aesthetically pleasing building featuring AESS. To further boost aesthetics, the application shop, Seattle-based Puget Sound Coatings, also applied an aesthetic topcoat of Sher-Loxane 800, another Sherwin-Williams product, on any steel that would be visible in the final structure. Supporting SLI’s commitment to sustainability, both coatings are also low in volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.
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A new method of designing and building high-rise apartment and office buildings is revolutionizing the construction industry, and the simple act of moving steel coating application from the construction site to an offsite facility is a critical factor enabling this revolution – while also allowing developers to erect buildings where they were previously impractical. |
All coatings applications were completed offsite, with the exception of required finishing work on areas where the structural steel needed to be welded on site. The efficiency of applying coatings offsite was an integral part of the 303 Battery project, which involved more than 2,000 pieces of structural steel and hundreds of prefabricated panels being assembled by a crew of just 14 workers in about eight months.
“If we had done the project conventionally onsite, it would probably have taken twice as long,” said Carrie Cassidy, Chief Construction Officer for SLI. “The offsite coating applications contributed significantly to that time savings.”
Project MVPs
Russell Norris, Business Development Manager – Fire Protection, Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine, was essential in coordinating a productive relationship between PSC and SLI. Along the way—before the project began and during its construction—Norris was proactive, contributing to maximizing productivity by providing his professional guidance, which also led to cost and time savings.
Samuel Schuetz, Technical Service Representative, Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine, led a team of Sherwin-Williams Technical Service Representatives in working closely with PSC so its applicators could gain comfort and skill with using equipment to apply fireproofing products correctly. Even with considerable supply chain issues, Schuetz earned notice for keeping the job moving, helping to optimize throughput at a challenging time.
Marcus Miller, Construction Manager, Sustainable Living Innovations, worked closely with numerous suppliers and trades to coordinate the countless logistics required to bring the building from its initial vision to its successful completion.
Roberto Trejo, Production Supervisor, and Gabe Rosgen, Shipping and Receiving Manager, Puget Sound Coatings, played crucial roles in coordinating the movement of structural steel for 303 Battery through Puget Sound Coatings’ shop, from initial receipt to the application process to staging finished pieces for delivery to the construction site, in a specified sequence that was an exercise in careful organization and attention to detail.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While some nominees ran unopposed in 2022, all were deemed worthy of their respective honors by JPCL editors. It is the Journal’s policy to present an award only if the entry meets our established standards. Thank you to those who submitted an exceptional group of nominees.
